Standardization of « La Gestion de l’implicite » to draw better conclusions from inferences understanding for adults patients and study of sociodemographic variables on test results

Abstract

Communication stems from a human need to maintain social interactions with others. Communication is not only a combination of purely linguistic elements, but it is also a social act. Pragmatic elements are essential for a correct understanding of the statement conveyed. An erroneous understanding of language can have important repercussions in daily social, family, school or professional life. It is therefore essential to accurately assess these difficulties.

A standard speech therapy assessment evaluates both formal and pragmatic aspects of communication. A rigorous evaluation of language skills in adults is essential since it will inform the best course of treatment.

The test La Gestion de l'implicite (Duchêne May-Carle, 2000) is frequently used by speech and language therapists. This tool assesses the language through explicit, logical, pragmatic, inferential verbal processing and tests resistance to distracting stimuli. This test provides essential quantitative information, but the current absence of standardization test results limits its use since there is no mechanism to identify interindividual differences.

First, this study proposes the standardization of the test thus allowing a precise link between a result obtained on the test and the different categories of questions and explores potential conclusions that can be drawn from the results.

We also studied whether different sociodemographic variables had a significant impact on test results. We found that sex of the subject was a key variable, women scoring higher than men. Also, the results were significantly correlated with the number of years of higher education. However, no impact of age on test performance was found.